


You Can Run

by violettavioletta



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29489235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violettavioletta/pseuds/violettavioletta
Summary: Andromeda knows she can't hide her family from Bellatrix. After all, she's never been able to hide anything from her sister.
Relationships: Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks, Bellatrix Black Lestrange & Andromeda Black Tonks
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7





	You Can Run

Andromeda is six years old, and she adores her sister. How could she not?

Oh, she likes Cissy alright, sure. But Cissy is younger, Cissy is timid, Cissy is scared. Cissy cannot pick her up and carry her around on her back until she's shrieking with delight. Cissy can't buy her an ice cream with money she's won from one of their cousins in a card game, laughing with delight as she tells her to keep it a secret. And Cissy's arms aren't long enough to wrap all the way around her and hold her tight after Mother and Father punish her, after Mother tells the house elf to lock her up in a closet or Father uses his wand to carve lines onto her back that don't leave scars but hurt so terribly she cannot breathe because she is crying so hard. Bella, though, Bella can do all of these things and more. She is just like Andromeda in so many ways, all the ways that Cissy is not, the only difference being Bella's long, thick, straight black hair, as opposed to Andy's wild, light brown mess of curls.

She adores her sister, alright.

* * *

Andromeda is eight years old, and she's sobbing her heart out on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. She does not want her sister to go. How can her sister go, and leave her alone? Cissy is crying, too, but Cissy is quiet about it. She's always been the sensible one. Her parents don't dare do anything to her while on the platform, they have a reputation to uphold. They stiffly hug Bella goodbye, and Andromeda can see the way that Bella cringes away from their touch. The allow Andromeda to chase after the train, waving goodbye to her sister as the tears stream down her face.

She is punished for those tears later, most severely. But as Andromeda sits alone in a dark closet, still crying, but silently this time, she resolves that she is not sorry for her tears, not now, and not earlier. Her sister deserves her tears and more. She would do anything for her sister.

She can't wait to go to Hogwarts, she thinks to herself, can't wait to leave her parents behind and go off to school and go on grand adventures with Bella.

* * *

Andromeda is nine years old, and she can't do this again, can't watch her sister leave for another year. She knows better than to cry at the platform this year, sometimes she can still feel the pain on her back from last year. But she slips into Bella's room very quietly the morning of her departure, and it is there that she cries. She is afraid, she confesses. She is afraid of Mother and Father. Bella strokes her hair, whispers to her, and then she reaches into her drawer and hands Andromeda a rather plain blue necklace.

"For you", Bella whispers, "Bought it down Knockturn Alley. Just hold it in your hand, and think of how much you need me. Only for emergencies, of course. But if you use it, I don't care what I have to do or who I have to hurt. I'll come."

That night, Andromeda asks Cissy if she will help her dye her hair black, like Bella's. Cissy refuses.

* * *

Andromeda is eleven years old, and she is trying to hide the tears, she really is. But she has never been able to hide a thing from Bella, who notices them immediately, in the Slytherin common room. Never one for subtlety, her fourteen-year-old sister plops herself down in the armchair beside her and puts an arm around her.

"Come now, Dromeda", she says, her voice soft and comforting in a way only Bella can be, "What's wrong?"

And so Andromeda tells her, tells her about the sixth-year boy who had made fun of her that morning, who had taken her Potions book while she was studying in the common room and hidden it, and Professor Slughorn had lectured her and threatened to give her a detention if she forgot her book again, and she was terrible at Potions, anyway, and now she was going to fail, and Mother and Father were going to be _so_ angry, and-

"Which boy?" Bella asks, cutting her off. Andromeda hesitates, and Bella grabs her hands. " _Which boy?"_

She points to a tall boy laughing with a group of friends across the common room with his back turned to them, his hands moving about as if he's excited. Travers, she thinks his name is.

In an instant, Bella has stood up, crossed the room, and rapped Travers hard on the head, forcing him to turn around.

"Where's the Potions book?" Bella asks, and her voice is harsh, like ice.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Black?" Travers answers, his voice cocky, "Tell you what, I'll tell you if you'll-"

He does not get to finish his sentence. Bella waves her wand so quickly Andromeda almost misses it, and he is levitated off the ground, hanging by his ears in what is assuredly a painful manner.

" _Where is it?_ " she demands, and Travers tries to stifle a cry of pain.

"Merlin, Black, it was just a joke! It's on the windowsill, charmed to be invisible. Let me down, won't you, bloody Hell!"

She jerks her wand, and he is free. He makes a move as if to grin at his mates. But then she twirls her wand in a complicated spiral fashion, and he is screaming, he is _screaming,_ and some others in the common room are as well, because one by one, his veins are popping out of his body and uncoiling themselves on the floor, and though he is not bleeding, he is clearly in terrible pain, for his face is screwed up in agony, and he is screaming, he is _screaming_.

Dark Magic, for sure.

His mates struggle to get him up off the floor, perhaps to take him to the Hospital Wing, but Bella takes no notice. She strides over to the chair where Andromeda is sitting, stunned.

"This is my sister", Bella says, and there is no warmth in her voice then, "And every single one of you would do well to remember it."

And then Bella turns and walks over to the window and retrieves the book, removes the invisibility charm on it, and drops it gently in Andromeda's lap. She gives her a soft smile before walking back to her dormitory, and the crowd parts to clear a path for her, like the Red Sea.

Bella gets a nasty detention and a lecture from Dumbledore himself for what she did to Travers, Andromeda knows. But Bella insists she is not sorry. And Andromeda believes her.

Her sister will never be sorry for protecting her.

* * *

Andromeda is twelve years old, and Bella has just jumped out at her from behind the banister at the top of the stairs while they're on holiday from school. She shrieked, and fell backwards, all the way to the bottom, and that _hurt_. She can't help it, she starts to cry, just a little. She looks up, expecting Bella to apologize profusely. But Bella is _laughing_.

"Oh, come on now, Dromeda", Bella says, laughter in her voice, "Don't cry. You should've seen the look on your face!"

Andromeda is so shocked, she stops crying. She is hurt. Why is Bella laughing? "Why'd you do that, Bell?" she finally asks. Bella is still laughing, almost gleeful.

"Because I knew it'd be funny. And it was. Didn't expect you to fall all the way, though. Merlin, really, Drom, you should've seen your face!" And Bella, still laughing, turns and runs off to her room. Andromeda, however, stays sitting at the bottom of the stairs until she hears a house elf coming, thinking. Why did Bella do this to her? Bella loves her. And besides, Bella isn't mean. She banishes from her mind images of the sixth year boy from the common room with veins popping out of him, of other students Bella had quibbled with in various states of disarray, because she knows her sister, and her sister is sweet, and kind, and good.

Bella isn't mean.

It must've been an off day for her, is all.

* * *

Andromeda is thirteen years old, and, oh Merlin, oh _Merlin_ , she's really going to fail Potions, this time around. Professor Slughorn had kept her after the previous class, explained to her kindly but rather curtly that her performance needed to improve or he'd be forced to owl her parents. Her parents are going to kill her, she can't fail Potions, she just can't. And so, when Professor Slughorn tells them to partner up for the day's project, she doesn't hesitate. She goes straight to that Hufflepuff boy, the one who usually works alone but always gets the potions right the first time, and asks if he would please, please partner with her. She is not above a bit of begging to avoid her parents' wrath.

He is a bit surprised, of course, but he says yes.

She didn't expect him to want to chat while they worked. Surprisingly, though, she finds she doesn't mind. He doesn't want to talk about politics and blood purity, or complain about Dumbledore, or even discuss potential betrothals, like the Slytherins that Bella insists she hang out with. He talks about Quidditch, and what OWLs he thinks he's going to take, and how his favorite book series will be getting a new installment soon (Andy has not heard of it. Her parents do not like it when she reads books they have not pre approved). He keeps up an easy, running conversation as he gently instructs her on how best to cut up the potions ingredients, and about halfway through Andromeda realizes her hands aren't shaking the way they usually do, and nearly drops the knife in surprise. She is almost sad when the class ends and Ted rushes off, explaining that he's going to meet some friends at lunch. She is left standing at their work table alone, slowly and methodically packing up her books and absentmindedly wondering if maybe Ted will lend her some of those books he's so fond of.

She is, she realizes, grinning like a prat.

She's still grinning, later, in the common room. Bellatrix asks what she is so happy about. She says she thinks she will pass Potions after all, with her new partner's help. Bellatrix, naturally, wants to know who this partner is, and Andy is so excited that she does not notice the tension in Bella's voice when she asks, and she tells her with a giggle.

That is how she learns Ted Tonks is a mudblood. But, more importantly, that is how she learns how much it hurts when your older sister cuffs you hard around the head. Not a playful slap, like siblings do. No, cuffs you like she _means it_.

* * *

Andromeda is fourteen years old, and she cannot stop thinking about Ted Tonks.

He is a mudblood, she knows. Scum. Inferior. Vile. Dirty. All of these things and more. She should not be around him, should not associate with him. She had vowed to do just that, at the beginning of this year. But then, as Fate would have it, they had had Potions together again, and Transfiguration and Charms, too. That first day, when Slughorn tells them to partner, Ted hadn't even asked her if she'd wanted to, just told her that he'd get the ingredients, and could she start the fire under the cauldron, and she hadn't known how to tell him that he was inferior and that she therefore couldn't work with him. She hadn't wanted to, either, she was able to admit that to herself. They were a good team, that was undeniable, and she liked working with him. Her hands didn't shake when she was with him. With him, she was half decent at Potions. With him, she might pass her OWL. And so they keep working together in Potions, and in Charms and Transfiguration, too, where they make just as good a team. She is even able to help _him_ out a bit in Charms, she's always been good at Charms.

It is during one of their Potions lessons, where they have the most time to talk, that he asks about her family. This surprises her. She is a Black. Everyone knows about the Blacks. But she smiles, and tells him she has a big family, with lots of cousins, and proudly tells him about her two sisters, Cissy and Bella.

"Bella…" he ponders, furrowing his brows, "Surely… surely you don't mean Bellatrix Black?"

Andromeda is confused. "What other Bella would I be referring to?"

"Bellatrix Black is your _sister?"_ he asks, and Andromeda is stunned at the disgust in his tone.

"So what if she is?" she asks, defensive. What right has Ted got to talk about her sister like that?

"She… she's… God, Andy, sorry, I know she's your sister, but… but she's vile, Andy, she's terrible!" Andromeda should be offended, but she is preoccupied. Ted has nicknamed her. Andy. She likes that.

"Is not!" Andy says. Ted looks at her, and it breaks her heart, a bit, to see the disappointment on his face, the trace of resentment, even if she senses it is not for her.

"Is too, Andy. Half of Hufflepuff threw a party when she graduated, believe me. She's… she's cruel, Andy. Not to you, maybe. But to everyone else. She would hex people for fun. Dark Magic, you know, no idea where she learned it. She… she called me a mudblood a lot. Used to use this nasty jinx that would make my eyes swell until it hurt so bad I wanted to dig them out with a spoon. Especially last year. For some reason, she seemed to really have it out for me, last year."

Andy grimaces, slightly. She knows why Bella had it out for him last year. She wants to defend her sister. It was only a bit of fun, she wants to say, that was what Bella always told her. And besides, Ted was a mudblood, that was a fact, so he couldn't blame Bella for calling him one. But… somehow…. none of that finds its way to her mouth. What comes out instead is, "I'm so sorry."

Ted scratches the back of his head. "Hey, water under the bridge, I guess. She's gone now. For me, at least. Surprised I didn't see it before, actually, you look just like her, except for the hair. Oh, and you smile. And you're nice. I mean, you're nothing like her, really."

For the first time in her life, Andy thinks that perhaps this is a good thing.

And for the first time in her life, Andy realizes that she is… _ashamed_ of her sister.

* * *

Andy is fifteen years old, and she is in love with Ted Tonks. She didn't try to be. She had tried to fight it, ever since third year. She had always made up excuses not to go into Hogsmeade with him, to not give him her address for letters, to not want to spend too much time with him outside of class. But he had walked in on her in the library late one night, crying over a letter from her mother (she always cried over letters from her mother, for her mother only ever wrote if she had something nasty to say), and she hadn't even had the time to snap at him, to tell him to go away, before he'd pulled her into his arms and held her tight. And she had cried and cried, because the only person who'd ever held her like this was Bella, but Bella was gone now, off doing something or other, with no time for her younger sister anymore, and besides, she isn't entirely sure Bella was who she'd always thought she was, anyway. And when she'd finally pulled back, he'd looked her right in the eyes.

"You alright, Andy?" he'd asked, and the genuine concern in his eyes had almost made her cry again.

"Yeah, I… it's stupid. I…" she'd started, but as she found his concerned brown eyes, she'd found she really didn't know what to say. "Thanks, Ted."

He kissed her forehead, then, and she knew she was a goner.

She went on the next Hogsmeade visit with him, hiding from Cissy and Lucius in the Hog's Head, ignoring the barman's questioning look as she, Andromeda Black of the Noble and Most Ancient, had placed her hands on either side of Ted Tonks' face and kissed the butterbeer foam right off his lips.

And so, when she is sitting with her cousin Sirius at Christmas, and he asks her how Hogwarts is going, she can't keep it in.

"I've made a friend", she tells her nine-year-old cousin, "He's… muggleborn."

He gulps, a bit. "Don't let our parents hear you saying that."

"What, the word muggleborn, or the fact that I'm friends with one?"

"Both", Sirius says, but then his eyes are laughing, "Always knew you were my favorite cousin, Andy."

  
Andy blushes. "He calls me Andy, too."

"So, when's the wedding?"

"Oh, shut up, you", says Andy, giving Sirius a shove. He laughs, but Andy doesn't, because now that Sirius, the little idiot, has planted the idea of a wedding to Ted in her mind, she can't stop thinking about it.

* * *

Andy is sixteen years old, and she is worried about her sister.

Bella wants to be an Auror. The Ministry wants Bella to be an Auror, had recruited her quite heavily, actually. Bella will be a fantastic Auror. But Bella is skipping Auror training, is skipping everything, really, to meet with _him_. To meet with that horrible man who calls himself a Lord, but isn't really, at least not of any of the pureblood houses Andy knows, and she knows them all. Bella had asked her to come. Cissy was going, she explained, because Lucius was, and the Dark Lord very much desired to meet her, the third Black sister. But Andy had refused, again and again. She is not Dark. She never will be Dark. And she will never, _never_ do anything or join any cause that might hurt Ted.

She does not tell Bella this, of course. Bella suspects there is something going on with Ted, she can't hide anything from her sister. But she is not about to announce it. So she lets Bellatrix throw her life away for that man, spend her evenings and nights and mornings and everything in between in his company, seeking to please him, to be accepted by him, to be loved by him.

She hears her parents whispering, once, late at night, about Bella's behavior, about the changes in her, her obsession with the man she called the Dark Lord. Even her appearance is changing. There are shadows behind her beautiful face, the face Andy has always secretly thought much more beautiful than hers. She is not taking the time to groom herself as she once did, to dress herself in a manner befitting a member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. And her hair, her straight, sleek black hair, has started to curl, started to twist, becoming wild and unmanageable and _wrong_. Cissy had said it was probably just hormones, and that she hoped hers didn't curl like that when she was older. But Andy knows better.

Madness. It is madness.

* * *

Andy is seventeen years old, and Bella is crying. She is trying to hide it, of course. It is her wedding day, she is supposed to be happy, or at least pretend like she is. But Bellatrix isn't happy, because she doesn't love Rodolphus, doesn't even like him. Andy hasn't seen Bellatrix in quite a while, no, they've certainly grown apart, but this she knows for sure. Rodolphus is much older, and ugly, and boring. But that is the way of things in pureblood families, and Andy knows how important it is to Bella to be the picture of a perfect pureblood woman, because the man that she is always going back to, always talking about, is a blood purist, that is his appeal, his cause, his worldview. Andy has tried to persuade her sister away from him, but her sister will not be persuaded. She had never been able to persuade Bella away from anything, really. But it was driven a rift between them, one she isn't entirely sure she knows how to cross. She has been cold with her sister, she knows. Aloof. Perhaps her sister suspects why, suspects that Andy has not subscribed to the pureblood view of blood supremacy in a long time. In fact, she probably does, Bellatrix knows her so well.

"Bella", she whispers, and even though Bella doesn't acknowledge her, she knows she's heard her. They're sisters, Bella can't hide anything from her. " _Bella",_ she says, more insistent. Bella doesn't say anything, but she does raise her arm, and Andy, in her ugly, stiff, proper bridesmaid robes, falls into her, hugs her sister from the side, and it's like nothing has changed at all. They're still Bella and Dromeda, after all. Still sisters.

"Bella, you don't have to do this", Andy starts, but Bella cuts her off.

"I love him, Dromeda", Bella whispers, and Andy could swear she sees something burn black underneath Bella's long white sleeve, can feel something glow hot on Bella's forearm, and Andy knows, without a doubt, who Bella is referring to, and it is not her future husband. And then Bellatrix's head is on her shoulder, and Bella is crying like a child, and Andy thinks for one brief moment that maybe everything will be just fine, because Bellatrix is hugging her again. Bellatrix is her sister again.

* * *

Andy is still seventeen years old, and for the first time in her life, she is really, truly, honestly, _afraid_ of her sister.

She wasn't supposed to witness what Bella was doing, she knows that for sure. Because what Bella was doing was _wrong_. She had walked to the very outskirts of their property to wait for an owl from Ted, something she'd taken to doing to ensure no one else saw them and got suspicious. But as soon as she'd seen Bellatrix, she'd frozen.

"Go back inside, Andromeda!" Bella snaps, but it is too late to hide what she has been doing. Foxes and snakes and bats lay before her, dead. She… she…

"You… you _tortured_ them!" Andy says, her mouth hanging open, her tone incredulous. She wants to run back inside, to find her owl and write to Ted and beg him to come take her away right this instant. "You… you tortured them and then… and then…" she gestures to the dead animals before Bella. "That's Unforgivable, Bella! You could go to Azkaban! You… you…"

But Bella is laughing, and it isn't Bella's laugh, it isn't her sister's laugh. This is madness laughing. "My Lord would break me out of Azkaban, and quickly", she says, and her voice sends shivers down Andy's spine. "Don't you get it, Andromeda? Times are changing. Big things are coming for the Wizarding World. And me? I intend to be at the forefront of the fight that's coming our way."

"You tortured them", Andy whispers. She isn't listening to Bellatrix, not really. "I… the Cruciatus… you tortured them… and the… the killing curse… oh, Bella…"

"Go back inside, Andromeda", Bellatrix says, and her tone is more controlled now, "Before I decide I want to practice on you."

* * *

Andy is eighteen years old, and oh Merlin, oh Merlin, she's pregnant.

She hasn't spoken to Bellatrix in over a month, not since she caught her with those animals. She isn't even entirely sure her sister will come. But she has to try. She has to. She can't ask Cissy, Cissy is only fifteen, she won't know what to do. Bellatrix is her older sister. Older sisters are supposed to help. And so Andromeda digs through her drawers until she finds that plain blue necklace. Her shoulders tense when she hears the telltale _crack_ of Apparition.

"What is it, Andromeda?" her sister asks tartly, "If you haven't called me here to tell me you're finally coming around to the Dark Lord, I really don't know what to-"

"I'm pregnant", Andy interrupts. Bellatrix is, for once, shocked into silence.

"Who?" she whispers, her voice dangerous. She knows, of course. Andy shakes her head.

"Not important. I just… I just need your help…"

"What, help?" Bellatrix screeches, and her voice has gone high, it's got none of the trained calm expected of a Black sister, "Help you and your… your… your half-blood spawn? Don't think I'm an idiot, I know whose baby that is, you bloody little fool! I will help you get rid of it, fine. But-"

"I'm _not_ getting rid of it", Andromeda says, her volume rising to match Bellatrix's, "I was hoping you'd help me work out a way to break the news to Mother and Father, or maybe a… a way to escape. Obviously I was wrong…"

"Wrong? Wrong? You've been wrong ever since you met that stupid, bleeding mudblood fool, Andromeda!

Andy's eyes, so much like Bellatrix's, become cold. "I see you've made your choice, then. I don't know why I called you. Clearly you love that man more than you do your sister. Go on then, get out. And take your stupid bleeding necklace with you."

"You'll live to regret this", Bellatrix hisses, undeterred by the harsh words, "I'll… I'll tell Mother and Father, I will! I'll-"

"I'm not nine, Bellatrix", Andy snarls, losing control, "I'm done cowering in a closet waiting for you to rescue me."

She walks away at that. She's got plans to make. She's got to escape to Ted's house, soon, before the pregnancy starts showing. Otherwise, if her parents don't kill her, it's looking like Bellatrix might.

* * *

Andy is eighteen years old, and sometimes she thinks she remembers what it is to adore her sister. But now, pinned against a wall, heavily pregnant, her sister's wand inches from her eyes, she cannot quite recall the feeling. She had been planning to slip out, to tell her parents she was off to a job interview and never come back. She had everything ready to go, all she needed to do was make her exit. She had been running her fingers lightly over the ring she wore around her neck, excited about being able to wear it on her finger in the very near future, when Bellatrix had appeared in her room, as if she had known. They're sisters, it's impossible to hide anything from her, really. They had argued. They had fought. And now Andy is pushed against her own bedroom wall, her sister's wand at her face, and Bellatrix's hair is wilder than it's ever been, and this, _this_ is madness.

"Say it again", her sister whispers, and there is a dangerous, terrible, _mad_ look on her face, their face. But Andromeda Black is no coward. She is, for better or for worse, Bellatrix Lestrange's sister.

" _We_ ", she starts, spitting the words with as much venom as she can muster, " _Are. Engaged!_ "

"I should kill you both", Bellatrix hisses, her voice taking that high, dangerous pitch that she seems to have learned from the Dark Lord, "You and that mudblood scum and your filthy halfbreed spawn!"

" _Kill me, then_!", Andy screams, and for a moment she is gripped with a rage so blinding, so powerful, that she wonders if Bellatrix's madness is hereditary, if perhaps they share more than a face, "Kill me and bring my body to your master and hope he gives you a bone, you cowardly little-"

" _Enough!_ " Bellatrix screams, and Andy feels herself propelled off the wall, thrown forward by the sheer force of Bellatrix's anger. She puts a hand over her stomach instinctively, shielding her baby from harm. Bellatrix keeps her wand trained on her, but her hand is shaking, oh Merlin, her hand is shaking. Why is her hand shaking?

"Get the fuck out of here", Bellatrix finally snarls, "Quickly, before I kill you. Blood traitor whore!"

Andy studies her sister's face, searching for some sign, any sign of the girl she used to know, the girl one could call Bella without expecting a curse for it, the one who would take a detention for hexing a boy two years ahead of her because he'd dared make fun of her little sister, the one who gave her a summoning necklace and promised she'd come if ever she was needed. She does not find it.

And so she turns her back on her sister, and walks out of their house, her trunk already waiting for her at Ted's. She never speaks to her sister again.

* * *

Andy is nineteen years old, and none of her family members save for her cousin Sirius are at her wedding. She doesn't mind, though. Sirius has brought his mates from school, and they're all very funny, and of course Ted's entire family is here, is very happy for the both of them, and their tiny daughter is watching everything with bright interest, her hair rapidly changing from red to green to pink to purple to gold to blue and back to red. It's fine, really, that none of her family has come. She chose her path, and she doesn't regret it.

She doesn't mind, she tells herself.

* * *

Andy is twenty-three years old, and Ted has his arm around her shoulders as they sit on their back porch, watching their young daughter play with Sirius and his mates, and she's sipping a lemonade that Ted made her, and she realizes, rather abruptly, that she is happy, undeniably, unbelievably happy. The sort of happy she never imagined she'd be, growing up. She wonders for a moment what her life would've been like had she walked the traditional path, gotten married to a man her parents had chosen for her when she was unable to find a respectable pureblood husband of her own, like Bellatrix had done when she married Rodolphus. And then, very suddenly, she's remembering Bellatrix's wedding, remembering the way Bellatrix had cried on her shoulder, and she shakes her head, because she does not want to think about Bellatrix crying, does not want to think about either of her sisters ever again, really, but especially not Bellatrix.

She lays her head on Ted's shoulder, and he automatically wraps his arms around her, and she smiles. He smells like potions ingredients, and Andy thinks that she'd probably be unable to distinguish the smell of a cauldron of freshly brewed amortentia from the surrounding potions lab.

* * *

Andy is twenty-seven years old, and Bellatrix is in Azkaban. Upon learning of the Dark Lord's demise, she had gone to the home of a young couple along with her husband and some other Death Eaters and tortured them until they were insane for information they did not have, and they say she probably even tortured their infant son and that she wasn't sorry, not even a little bit, and now Bellatrix is in Azkaban for the rest of her life and for the first time, holding that _Daily Prophet_ article, Andy is able to look at a photograph of her sister and not see even the faintest trace of herself.

She breaks her coffee mug.

It feels good.

And, suddenly, she is up and about, grabbing things, throwing things, hurling them at the wall and watching them shatter. Ted is dropping Nymphadora off at school, neither of them are here to be hurt in the crossfire, and so Andy breaks and she breaks and she breaks until there is nothing left in the house to throw at the wall and explode into pieces, until the only thing left to break is herself, and break she does, lying there on the floor, feeling broken glass beneath her, sobbing into her hands.

As always, it is Ted who picks her up and puts her back together.

He comes home to find her on the floor. Just as he did in their fifth year, he doesn't say anything, just picks her up and holds her against his chest, and gradually, she manages to stop crying, to pull herself together enough to gesture to the article on the kitchen table, to the picture of the mad woman that accompanies it. His face contorts for a brief moment into an indistinguishable expression. But then it is gone, and his arms are around her again, and his chin is on the top of her head, and suddenly, all traces of the emotion that made Andy storm through the house and break everything she owned is gone, replaced with a hollow mellowness, and a deep, deep love for Ted.

Ted waves his wand, and the cuts from broken glass disappear from her body. And then, together, they go through the house and repair the damage, and then Ted calls in sick from work, and they spend the day on the couch together, laughing like they're two kids in Potions class all over again.

* * *

Andy is forty-two years old, and Bellatrix has escaped.

Andy isn't stupid, she knows what this means even without Nymphadora explaining it to her. She knows Bellatrix has rejoined the Dark Lord, and that she will hunt them down. She knows Bellatrix regrets not killing her, all those years ago, knows any humanity Bellatrix had then had festered and rotted and died in Azkaban, and that she will be looking for them. She knows she will have to tell Ted to go, to run, to hide, because Andromeda can't hide him, she has never been able to hide anything from her sister.

But, somehow, she can't find it in her to dwell on that. All she can do is stare at the photograph in front of her, the first photograph of her sister she has seen in twelve years. Any beauty Bellatrix had is long, long gone. The woman looks to have aged decades in those twelve years.

Andy shudders, and hopes to Merlin that she doesn't look like that if she ever grows old, if she survives the coming war, if Bellatrix doesn't find her and kill her herself, like she surely wishes she had all those years ago. She will, though. She knows she will.

* * *

Andy is forty-four years old, and Ted is dead.

Bellatrix didn't kill him. Not directly, at least.

But she helped.

That night, her heavily pregnant daughter, eyes rimmed in red from crying, walks in on her sitting by an open window. She raises an eyebrow at her mother, a look that is equal parts confusion and concern.

"Should've done this years ago", Andy says gruffly, gesturing to the pile of photographs, "Don't even know why I had them in the first place."

She is ripping up every photograph of Bellatrix that she has left, from photographs of the three of them as children to that photograph from the _Daily Prophet_ announcing Bellatrix's escape, and throwing them out the window, letting them fly away like snow. She doesn't know why she kept them, anyway. Stupid thing to do.

Stupid.

* * *

Andy is forty-five years old, and her daughter is dead. Her husband is gone, her grandson is orphaned, and her daughter is dead.

Bellatrix killed her. Did it herself. Of course she couldn't protect her daughter from Bellatrix, she has never been able to hide anything from her sister.

Andy has no one to pick her up off the floor and hold her tonight.

Bellatrix died in the battle too, she knows. And she is glad. Because Bellatrix died a very long time ago, really. Molly Weasley just made it official. Somewhere, deep in her Slytherin heart, Andy wishes she'd been at the final battle, that she'd cast the spell that had finally snuffed out Bellatrix's life. That it had been her who had killed her sister.

* * *

Andy is forty-five years old, and she hates the Dark Lord with a fire so furious one could boil a hundred cauldrons over it. She hates him for everything he has done to so many families just like hers. She hates him for taking her husband, the one she gave everything for. She hates him for taking her daughter, the thing she'd loved most in the world. She hates him for orphaning her blue-haired grandson. And, every now and then, late at night, she hates him for stealing her younger sister away. And every now and then, late at night, when she is acutely aware that she has no one left to hold her, she hates him for taking her older sister, too.

* * *

Andy is forty-six years old. By wizarding standards, she's young, really, not that anyone looking at her would know it. Her face, like Bellatrix's had, has hollowed out, thinned until any trace of its former beauty had gone. Another thing she shared with her sister, besides her face- she has also aged two or three years for every year she's been alive. Her sister, however, is not aging anymore.

Andy is on her knees, and Bellatrix is below her, deep in the ground. Her husband is not there, he is rotting in Azkaban, living like the dead but among the living nevertheless- it is only Bellatrix and Andy, here. She has dissilussioned herself, so that no one will see her visiting the grave. To be completely honest, she isn't entirely sure why she is. She hasn't even visited Narcissa, probably won't, if she's being frank with herself. Narcissa is difficult. Narcissa is younger. Narcissa is complicated. Narcissa is alive and able to hold a conversation that Andy isn't entirely sure she wants to have, even if the outcome might be good. Bellatrix is none of these things. Andy runs her hand over the gravestone, feels the hate carved into it, the vile invectives directed at her sister, and isn't sure which is worse- the fact that she is glad the hate is there, or that, very deep down, a part of her is sad that it is. She takes her hand away. The stone is cold, too cold to touch for very long.

Finally, slowly, she rises. She did not bring any flowers for Bellatrix, because Bellatrix Lestrange had taken everything from her. Her husband. Her daughter. Her life. She was not going to bring the deplorable woman anything. But Bella Black had given everything to her, and maybe that was why Andy was in the graveyard that day, yes, that had to be it. Having come to that realization, she turns on her heel and leaves. The Lestrange family plot is a repugnant place, she has no desire to stay here longer than is necessary.

Bellatrix would've noticed how uncomfortable she was, she knows. Probably would've seen through her disillusionment charm, too. She wonders if Bellatrix is watching her from whatever Hell she might be in, if Bellatrix knows all of her secrets, now. She probably is, Andy reasons. After all, she's never been able to hide anything from her sister.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this one while home from work for a day on a covid scare, haha.


End file.
